I’ve picked up a lot of interesting, and often delicious, items while visiting Amish businesses around the country. Here are my top 3 buys: 1. Hickory rocker Technically, this was more “barter” than “buy”. Â It was 2005, and I was selling books in the sprawling Holmes County, Ohio Amish community. Â I had stopped in one afternoon at an Amish furniture place – a hickory rocker…
From an Andy Weaver Amish home, a quilt in frame: Zooming in: Thanks to Karen Johnson-Weiner for the photo. Here are a few more Amish interiors: Amish Kitchen Amish Living Room Amish Wall Decor
Last year I visited the Ethridge, Tennesse Amish community. Â I was surprised to find that Ethridge is the Amish mecca of the South. For being a conservative Swartzentruber community, the place is crawling with tourists (relatively speaking, of course. Â Lancaster County, this ain’t). It’s also a charming place to visit. Â It’s got a rural feel despite the oversized tour wagons rumbling about. I hope you…
This question got a lot of interesting responses on the Amish America Facebook page this weekend. Four years ago, I wrote about my top 5 Amish settlements. Â Is that post still valid? Since then, I’ve visited around 20 more communities. Â But I’d say yes–with maybe one or two changes. So what’s your favorite Amish community? For ‘bonus points’, tell us why! NY Amish photo: las-initially
This October will mark 5 years since the Nickel Mines shootings. Â The Amish forgiveness story was hugely powerful and quickly spread around the world, in part because it was so unusual. Â People just don’t forgive, so quickly, after a crime of such magnitude. Five years on, one wonders how much the lessons of the Amish at Nickel Mines have stuck with us. The Young Center…
Mention “Ohio Amish”, and most people think of the large settlement at Holmes County, or perhaps Geauga County to its north. But just a short ways down the road from the large Holmes settlement lies an often-overlooked but sizeable Amish community. Â Amish have lived in Ashland and neighboring Medina County for nearly sixty years. Ashland and Medina County Amish About 2,000 Amish live here, in…
“It turns out that beach houses and Amish timber frames are a match made in heaven” explains the narrator in today’s video. Below, a neat clip showing an Amish construction crew rebuilding in Texas, post-Hurricane Ike. In the video, Missouri Amish builder Danny Schwartz demonstrates timber frame construction (the kind used on Amish barns, with wooden pegs driven in by mallets). Â “Our attitude to building…
I resisted Facebook for a good while, but finally got a profile back in 2009. Â Since then, I’ve often thought about the above question. What got me pondering this today, though, was an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (“Amish learn value of networking”). Â Amish are using social networking to market their products, with the help of third parties. Â PA Amish farmer and co-op member…
When I first met the Amish, I spent a warm fuzzy period admiring and even idealizing Amish society. Â This was in the summer of 2004, and I was selling a set of books called the Family Bible Library to Amish families. Â I had spent a fruitful few weeks in the Arthur, Illinois community before traveling to Indiana. I remember one day in the Daviess County,…
Over the past few weeks we’ve tried to show the diverse interiors of Amish homes, from the plainer to the more progressive. I hope you enjoy this shot today from a more conservative Swartzentruber Amish home: What do you spy on that dresser? Hanging around: Special thanks to Karen Johnson-Weiner (author of New York Amish: Life in the Plain Communities of the Empire State)Â for sharing…